Integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices are formed to include a multitude of individual transistors coupled together and to various other features to form functional devices. If any one of the transistors fails, device functionality can be destroyed. In advanced semiconductor device fabrication and manufacturing, plasma chemistry operations are used multiple times in the sequence of fabrication operations used to form integrated circuit and other semiconductor devices. Plasma operations include plasma etching operations and plasma deposition operations. Plasma vapor deposition, PVD, and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, PECVD, represent just two of many plasma deposition operations.
The plasma operations utilize excited ions, and these ions are directed to a surface of a substrate on which a device is formed, often at high biases. The highly sensitive transistors utilized in integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices commonly include gates (e.g., gates including polysilicon or metal) positioned over a gate dielectric which may be an oxide or other gate dielectric material. During plasma operation, charge accumulates on the gates, and the accumulated charge results in an increased voltage across the gate dielectric. If the voltage across the gate dielectric exceeds a threshold (e.g., 10 MV/cm), charge passage through the dielectric can cause damage that create traps in an interface between the dielectric and an underlying substrate (e.g., a silicon substrate). Plasma induced gate dielectric damage is commonly referred to as the antenna effect and is an effect that damages transistor gates and the transistor gate dielectric materials. Such damage can potentially cause yield, reliability, and noise problems during the manufacture of MOS integrated circuits. Device functionality can be destroyed if the gate dielectric damage is severe.